After more than 25 years as the emcee of the Reading Holiday Parade, Charles J. Adams III gets to lead the march this year. “It’s such an honor after emceeing it for all those years,” Adams said. “But I think that giant screeching sound you may have heard is them scraping the bottom of the barrel. Honestly, I was almost in tears. I can’t wait to wave at everyone.” The parade starts on Saturday at 9 a.m. at 11th and Penn streets and continues down Penn to Second Street, ending at about noon. New this year will be an area at Fifth and Penn streets where some groups can stop and perform.

Despite his self-deprecating comments, Adams has more than earned the honor to lead the parade he emceed for more than a quarter-century. In fact, some of his fondest memories are of standing in all sorts of weather waiting for Santa’s arrival in Reading. “We had the normal swings in temperature,” he said. “There was one time when it was 15 degrees out there. Literally my lips were freezing together. Then other times it was so warm that I was taking off layer after layer of clothing. It’s all really just a matter of coping with what happens.” A particular honor, he said, was getting to chat with Pittsburgh Pirates hall-of-famer Willie Stargell. “I am such a huge baseball fan, so it was a real hoot when he was the grand marshal, and really just horsing around with that guy is probably my fondest memory,” Adams said. There were issues every year that the public didn’t know about, he said: grand marshals who were late, marching groups who were out of order. “The sound system was notorious for failing,” he said. “Or it wasn’t pointing in the right direction. But really, it was always so well-organized that all problems were immediately rectified.”

He credits volunteers, including Reading Eagle Company employee Dana Hoffman, for keeping things moving.

“Dana was my left hand person,” he said. “She kept things moving so by the time things got up to the podium I was announcing the right people.”

Even the inevitable gaps in the parade were smoothed over by Adams well-known brand of humor.

“I would just tell people those were the ghosts of Berks County marching,” he said.

Although he retired from his radio show on WEEU 830 AM, Berks County’s only locally owned radio station, last year, Adams is still busy telling and writing his ghost stories, leading ghost tours and making divining rods.

“(Retirement) lets me spend more time doing those things,” he said. “But I don’t really like to sleep, so I’ve got even more time.”

Charles Broad, executive director of the Downtown Improvement District, which sponsors the parade, said events actually get started Friday night with the tree-lighting ceremony.

That begins at 6:30 p.m. when Reading Mayor Vaughn D. Spencer lights the tree at the intersection of Fifth and Penn streets. Free hot chocolate and cookies will be provided by Outside In Restaurant, and live music will be provided by city elementary schools and church choirs. The 20-plus-foottall tree is from a farm in Auburn, Schuylkill County.
Saturday morning’s parade promises to draw more than 10,000 onlookers who’ll get to see marching bands, civic and youth organizations, nonprofit groups and a large helium balloon, which debuted last year. And of course, the jolly old elf himself.

“We’re fortunate to have so much support and enthusiasm for both the tree-lighting ceremony and the parade,” Broad said. “And we are privileged to have Charlie Adams serve as our parade marshal. Charlie has a huge following in this area.”

Adams said he’s up to the task, too.

“I’ve rented a couple of movies of the Queen (Elizabeth II) so I can get that queenie wave,” he said. “And I’ve practiced dealing with the paparazzi.”

Ginny was born about eight years before Barbie, whose official introduction was on March 9, 1959.

Like Barbie, Ginny has a lot of outfits, hats, purses and shoes made especially for her. But she’s not a grown-up doll like Barbie. Her shape was made to look more like the little girls who played with her. She is 7 1/2 inches tall.

Susan Doll had three Ginnys when she was a girl in the 1950s. It was and still is her favorite toy. Her maternal grandmother made outfits for her dolls. Her maternal grandfather made furniture for them. Susan made a sofa when she was 11.

“My sister had chairs and a bed,” Susan said. “We would set up little rooms and play for hours just like some girls play with Barbies today. They call Ginny America’s Sweetheart before Barbie.”

Susan, an artist, treasured her three dolls and all the outfits, taking good care of them over the years. About 18 years ago, she decided to expand her doll family so she could display the outfits her grandmother made.

She purchased more Ginnys and similar dolls at flea markets and auctions. She also bought accessories. She taught herself to make little wigs. Thirty dressed dolls now reside in a cabinet in the guest room of her Pennside home.

Some of the dolls wear original Ginny outfits that were sold in stores. Others show off her grandmother’s handiwork, either sewn or crocheted. One looks like a ballerina. Another is dressed as a bride. One looks like she’s ready for school. Another wears a hooded cape, ready for rain.

“The best ones I have I bought at auctions for not much money,” Susan said. “The most I spent for a Ginny is $45.”

Finding one at that kind of price today would be difficult. Ginny and her imitators — including Ginger, Lucy, Pam, Muffie, Vicky, Norma and Joanie Pigtails — are popular among doll collectors, so prices for the originals have gone up.

Ginny has undergone a lot of changes since Jennie Adler Graves introduced her forerunner in 1948. The doll was so popular that Jennie created the Ginny line in 1951, naming the doll after her daughter Virginia. She sold them from her Ye Olde Vogue Doll Shoppe in Somerville, Mass.

The early dolls were made of hard plastic and had sleepy eyes. A doll that walked from the hip was introduced in 1954. A few years later, the doll was changed to walk from the knee.

According to the current producer, The Vogue Doll Co., Jennie’s sales rose rapidly until 1953, when she sold more than $2 million. By 1957, sales were more than $5 million, and imitators began to appear on the market. Jennie retired in 1960, and her family ran the business until 1972, when it was sold to Tonka Corp.

The company changed hands several times after that until The Vogue Doll Co. took over in 1995. The new company’s website, www.voguedolls.com, states that its intent is to restore Ginny to her deserved place in the modern doll era.

Susan stopped buying dolls about two years ago and isn’t planning on adding more to her collection. She’s content with what she has and the nostalgia her dolls evoke when she looks at them.

“It was a really special time in my past,” she said. “Some people love dolls, and some people don’t. I loved dolls, and I loved these dolls the best.”

Mary Young is a freelance writer and collector. Tell her about your treasures, where you go to find them and the fun you have on the hunt. You can reach her at you1949@nullgmail.com.

The Yocum Institute for Arts Education will present the 2014 Coggins Award to local artist Rich Houck on Thursday at the Stirling Guest Hotel, 1120 Centre Ave.

Houck has been heavily involved at the institute for many years as an outstanding faculty member who also teaches at Alvernia University.

His work with young and older students inspires their creative spirits.

He is a past judge of the annual Junior/Senior High School Art Exhibit.

Houck was nominated by members of the artistic community in Berks County for the Coggins Award for not only his talent but his giving spirit.

Houck holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and a certification for art education K-12 from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. He studied under Warren Rohrer and Steve Jaffee.

He has more than 15 years of teaching experience. H0uck was a founding artist at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts and had a personal studio there.

He is a lifelong artist and a native of Berks County. He has studied in Philadelphia and Rome. He has resided and worked in Manhattan, Lancaster and Rose Valley, Delaware County, and is well-traveled in the U.S. and internationally.
He is a husband and father who returned to Berks to raise and be near family.

Houck has been recognized as an inventive and versatile artist in a variety of media. Over the past 20 years, he has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the United States and in Rome.

The public is invited to attend the 2014 Coggins Award presentation and reception at Stirling Guest Hotel.

The Coggins Award, established in 2006, recognizes artists who embrace the values that the late artist Jack Coggins exhibited: creativity, innovation and service to the institute and the community.

Tickets to the event are $45 for members of the institute and $50 for nonmembers. Proceeds from this event will benefit the visual-arts department. To purchase tickets for the event or make a contribution in honor of Rich Houck, please call the institute at 610-376-1576, ext. 203.

An exhibition of oil paintings by Reading artist Jill Skaist is viewing through Oct. 30 at the Jewish Cultural Center in Wyomissing. The artist is displaying about two dozen works that encompass four decades of production.

A life member of the Art Students League, Skaist also studied at the School of Visual Arts, both in New York City, while receiving her degrees in art history and fine arts from the University of Pennsylvania. She was born in Berks County and moved to New York City, returning to Reading 36 years later to help her parents. Since that move, she has been her about 10 years.

The earlier paintings, such as an untitled work from 1981, have a comical, almost satirical look to them that distorts her subject’s faces into semimanic characterizations of line, color and composition. Many are concocted from her imagination.

Her later pieces are informed with fluid brushwork, solidly drawn features and an occasional story line embedded with text, such as the socially reflective “An Apple.” This small but complex work depicts a woman flirtatiously eating an apple on the left side of the painting. A young boy in rags can be seen with an open hand. The words “seduction” and “starvation” are written between them.

Acknowledging an artist from Reading’s past, a closeup portrait of William Baziotes shows the acclaimed painter in a contemplative pose in black and sepia, a hand placed at his right cheek. Another piece, “It was disturbing because she was wearing a pair of rubber gloves,” tells a story about a fragment of conversation overheard publicly. Other pieces reference topics of aging, civil war and gossip, investing each with conviction and personal meaning.

She has a strong color sense that joins well with her drawing style to provide the content and continuity among the 40 years of painting. These unusual yet socially charged narratives, analogies and portraits of people are both serious and playful in their approach.

Some of the greatest achievements in professional rock climber Craig DeMartino’s life came after he nearly lost it. As a gold-medal-winning amputee climber, DeMartino has drawn the attention of the climbing community for years. And now, television producers are interested. The Exeter Township native and Kutztown University graduate will tell his story of perseverance and the stories of others like him in a television series starting this weekend.

DeMartino, 49, will host “Fight to Survive,” premiering Saturday at 1:30 p.m. on the Outdoor Channel.

The first episode, titled “After the Fall,” begins the series by telling De-Martino’s own harrowing story of survival.

In July 2002, DeMartino fell 100 feet in a devastating climbing accident that left his body in shambles.

The fall pulverized his second lumbar (L2) vertebra and broke his neck, multiple ribs, his right heel and his ankles. The tibia and fibula of his right leg burst through the skin, slicing his tibial artery, spraying blood on the rocks under him.

“Before the accident, I was a big planner, and I thought I could control everything, until that illusion of security was gone,” DeMartino said. “I didn’t understand that it really was an illusion until I was broken down. It was a big perspective shift.”

Undergoing numerous surgeries, months of recovery and therapy, DeMartino found himself climbing outdoors with a cast on his leg only nine months after the accident.

Facing an intensely painful nerve disorder in his right leg and accepting that it would never fully heal, DeMartino decided to have the leg amputated below the knee in December 2013.

But losing a limb did not stop him from his habit of ascending hard climbs. Rather, it drove him to climb harder.

“Relearning to climb actually was really fun,” DeMartino said. “Before the accident, I could just force my way up a climb. Now, I have to be very conscious of the movement and technique because of my limitations. I’m a better technical climber than I’ve ever been.”

DeMartino returned to the sport using a prosthetic leg and became a professional rock climber in 2008. Since then he has become one of the best paraclimbers (rock climbers with disabilities) in the world.

Climbing and sports magazines have told his story, and he became a motivational speaker six years ago.

The Outdoor Channel reached out to DeMartino earlier this year, asking to tell his story. Conversations continued back and forth between DeMatino and the show’s producers until they finally asked him if he would be interested in hosting the show.

“They took a chance with me,” DeMartino said. “The first couple episodes were definitely a learning experience.”

DeMartino said he was drawn to the opportunity of hosting the show because it gives viewers insights into the survivor mentality.

DeMartino met and interviewed the nine other survivors featured in the show’s first season from March to June.

“There are a lot of common threads,” DeMartino said. “I can connect with a guy that was floating in the ocean for days because we played the same mental games, just in different arenas.”

DeMartino is set to return as the host for the second season of “Fight to Survive.”

He said he hopes the series can promote the ideals he shares in his public speaking: the values of leadership, overcoming obstacles and living in the present.

“Whatever you are dealing with, it is only temporary,” DeMartino said. “For better or worse, your situation is going to change, and you have to be open to that. Once you do that, it is really freeing.”

About DeMartino: Reigning 2014 Paraclimbing national champion. Bronze medal in the 2014 Paraclimbing World Champion- ships held in Gijon, Spain. Bronze medal in the 2012 Paraclimbing World Champion- ships held in Palais de Bercy, France. Five gold medals in the Extremity Games, an extreme sports competition for athletes with disabilities. Along with climbers Jarem Frye and Pete Davis, DeMartino led the first all disabled ascent of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite monolith in Yosemite Valley in California’s Yosemite National Park in 2012. First amputee to ascend The Nose, a 2,900-foot climb on the southwest face of El Capitan, in 2010. First amputee to ascend El Capitan in a day in 2008.

Age: 49 Hometown: Exeter Township Education: Exeter High School, class of 1983. Kutztown University, majored in communications, design and photography, class of 1987. Lives in: Loveland, Colo. Profession: Climber, motivational speaker, photographer and television host. Family: Wife, Cyndy, and children Mayah, 16, and Will, 14.